A Message of Hope in Hard Times

I’ve received a lot of emails from people, and had a lot of conversations over the last several weeks with Catholics on the brink of despair.

How could this happen? What is going on? What are we going to do?

I share your pain and confusion…deeply.

And while I’m horrified by daily revelations about the cancer that is eating our Church alive, I also know that Christ is King and His Church will endure.

In this episode of the Art of Catholic I’m going to weigh in on where I find myself coming down in all of this. And I want to provide some food for thought and prayer as we continue to watch all of this unfold.

It’s my desire to give you some hope and a plan of action.

The crisis isn’t going away. It shouldn’t go away. It needs to be dealt with immediately.

But I also want to remind you why the Catholic Church is, and will always be, holy…in spite of humanity’s best attempts to muck it up.

Blessings,

Matthew

P.S. Join me for a time of spiritual renewal in March 2019: Rome, Assisi, Orvieto, LaVerna, and much, much more!

with Dr. Michael Healy

On this episode of the Art of Catholic, we’ll peel back some of the deeper layers of love.

In fact, we’ll get to the heart of Christian love.

My guest wears spectacles and dark socks with his tennis shoes, but can still drain 3’s in a pickup game.

His name is Dr. Michael Healy and he’s the former Academic Dean at Franciscan University of Steubenville.

He’s smart. And this is his specialty.

His “Nature of Love” course at Franciscan literally changed my life. It opened me up to deeper understanding of the reality and demands of love.

(And it helped me convince his daughter to marry me:).

Now I want to share him with you on this episode of the Art of Catholic. He’s an expert in the texts of St. John Paul II, among others, and is going to enlighten us all with some of the philosophy of love that every one of us needs to understand in order to fulfill the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

This is obviously a huge topic and there’s a lot more to say. That said, we get to a good portion of it in this very enlightening conversation. Among other things he’ll answer:

How should Catholics approach the topic of love?

Is there a difference between love of neighbor and love of God?

Can we have a truly disinterested love?

Why is love so often the occasion for sin?

What is the relationship between sex and love?

Can we call same-sex attraction love?

Is the religious life is an objectively higher calling than marriage?

What about marriage in heaven?

It’s a fascinating conversation you’re not going to want to miss.

God bless!

Matthew

P.S. I’m heading back to Italy! Join me in March 2019 for an amazing pilgrimage to Rome, Assisi, Orvieto, LaVerna, and much, much more!

The Inner Logic of the Most Famous of All Prayers

The Our Father is the most famous of all prayers, taught to us by God himself.

And while you’ve probably droned through it a few thousand times, have you ever really dug into what you’re saying?

For a long time, I hadn’t. And my guess is it’s the same for many of you.

So in celebration of the upcoming (at least in many countries) Father’s Day holiday, I thought I’d pay homage to the Our Father on the Art of Catholic podcast, by unveiling the inner logic of Christ’s own prayer.

Because this isn’t just a prayer, it’s a deep, rich teaching that provides a window into the very identities of both God and man, and our incredible relationship.

ABOUT ME

I am an author, speaker, podcaster, Vice President and Executive Producer at the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology. I’m married to a beautiful woman named Veronica with whom I have six children (so far…she’s 10 years younger so you never know).